Trump attacks former GOP senator calling on Republicans to ‘speak out against’ president

Former GOP lawmaker warns of ‘long-term damage when this kind of behaviour is normalised’

Donald Trump has attacked a former GOP senator from Arizona after he compelled other Republicans still on Capitol Hill to “speak out against” the president’s undemocratic attempts to overturn the results of his electoral defeat.

Former senator Jeff Flake (R—Az) posted a link to a news report on Twitter that revealed how Mr Trump called the House speaker in Pennsylvania as part of his last-ditch effort to overturn the state’s win for President-elect Joe Biden.

Mr Biden won the state’s 20 electoral college votes in 2020, after Mr Trump carried the critical battleground in 2016. The Trump campaign’s lawsuits and allegations of mass voter fraud in the state have been repeatedly discredited by judges – as well as the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security, which described the 2020 election as the “most secure” in US history.

Mr Flake said in his tweet that there is “long-term damage when this kind of behaviour is normalised” and added: “It is not normal, and elected Republicans need to speak out against it.”

Never one to back down from a Twitter fight, Mr Trump quoted the former lawmaker’s tweet and responded with an attack on his polling numbers from when he served in the Senate.

“It’s not normal when a sitting Senator is forced to retire because his Arizona poll numbers were so low that he would have come out dead last in the Republican Primary,” the president wrote.

He then claimed Mr Flake had “zero chance of winning the general election” after the senator spoke out against the president in 2017 and later announced he would not seek re-election.

Mr Trump added: “Great job Jeff!”

Mr Flake is far from the sole Republican speaking out against Mr Trump’s attacks on the electoral process. GOP election officials and secretaries of state in areas where the president lost to Mr Biden have said they’re receiving death threats from his supporters.

Democrats have also said they are receiving death threats after presiding over hearings featuring the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who has since contracted Covid-19 after traveling to Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.

However, few Republicans in Congress have publicly condemned the president’s efforts to hold onto power despite his clear loss in the 2020 election. Mr Flake, who has consistently spoken out against the president, faced low approval ratings in the final months of his tenure in the Senate as he began to sharply contest Mr Trump’s presidency.